Wife of Secretary of State Kerry said to show signs of seizure

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Family members of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, believed she might have suffered a seizure before she was rushed to a hospital, a source close to the family said on Monday.

The source declined to provide details on the condition of Heinz Kerry, 74, a philanthropist and heiress, but a Boston newspaper reported she was in critical but stable condition.

"Yesterday afternoon when she was stricken family members saw her exhibiting symptoms consistent with a seizure but she is still being evaluated at this time," said the family source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

She was initially taken by ambulance from the family's summer home on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket to the local hospital and then flown in her own plane to Boston, where she was being treated at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Glen Johnson, a State Department official who serves as Kerry's personal spokesman, announced her illness on Sunday but did not give details.

Heinz Kerry was born in the southern African nation of Mozambique and was married to Republican Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz III, an heir to the Heinz food fortune, until his death in a 1991 helicopter crash.

In 1995, she married Kerry, who at the time was a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts, on Nantucket.

Kerry's second wife, she is the chairman of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. She is active in environmental issues, has served on numerous boards and has been awarded 10 honorary degrees, according to the Heinz Endowment.